posted April 20th, 2010 at 12:18 am

Jimmy Buffett’s new live acoustic double album entitled “Encores” hits stores today! Swing by your local Walmart or Margaritaville to pick it up, or order online for $12.00 at Walmart.com. The MP3 download will be available at Walmart.com only.

“Encores” features 22 of Jimmy’s intimate final encore songs recorded during the 2008/2009 tour. This unique collection showcases Jimmy solo acoustic (12 songs), features a few special guests and is unlike anything he’s released before.

posted April 19th, 2010 at 11:45 am

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band will perform at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon on Tuesday, October 19th.

Tickets go on sale Monday, April 26th at 10 am PT through TicketMaster.

If past tours are any indication, Buffett will likely perform other shows on the West Coast in October. Possibilities include Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco (Mountain View), Los Angeles (Irvine), and San Diego (Chula Vista).

posted April 19th, 2010 at 8:11 am

In today’s Miami New Times, music industry veteran Lee Zimmerman writes about his part in helping Jimmy Buffett’s young career:

While Jimmy Buffett was a relative unknown around the rest of the country, he was already a fairly big name in Florida, so it became incumbent upon me to build some local airplay for “Margaritaville” — the first single off his Changes In Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes album. Fortunately, it was one of those rare occasions where some normally conservative stations agreed to give an untested record airplay practically out of the box. Being that he was now considered a native son, and that his lyrics about blown out flip-flops and soothing concoctions aptly reflected the state’s sunnier side, access to their charts seemed appropriate.

Soon, stations from Miami to Jacksonville, and practically everywhere in-between, were blasting the song in heavy rotation, giving impetus to other radio stations across the country to also give it a spin. On May 7, 1977, “Margaritaville” cracked Billboard’s top ten, and Buffett was a big star, one who could finally claim hit-making credentials. And I became a hero in my own right, having launched a chart-topper and helped create a new cash cow. A few weeks later, UPS delivered a plaque to my house — a “gold record” signifying sales of more than a million copies of the album, boasting my name as the object of the label’s gratitude.

posted April 15th, 2010 at 10:07 am

On Wednesday night Comedy Central aired the 200th episode of South Park, bringing back many of the celebrities they’ve made fun of over the years, including Jimmy Buffett.

The premise of the episode was that all of the celebrities were banding together to to file a class action lawsuit against the town of South Park for the constant ridiculing. They’re led by Tom Cruise, who agrees to drop the lawsuit if the town can arrange a meeting between him and the prophet Muhammad. Cruise believes that Muhammad is impervious to ridicule, and that they too can become impervious.

As Cruise pitches his idea to the other celebrities, he says to the cartoon Buffett: “Jimmy Buffett, how would you like it if no one could call your music drunken, frat boy monkey garbage?”

Buffett responds: “I’d…. I’d love it.”

Watch the full episode here. The part with Buffett starts around the 7:05 mark.

Buffett was first lampooned on the show back in 2008 when he was shown performing “AIDSburger in Paradise” at a benefit concert for Cartman after he was diagnosed with AIDS. Watch the clip.

posted April 14th, 2010 at 12:40 pm

Documents posted online by the Nashville Metro Historic Zoning Commission say that with a few minor modifications, Margaritaville’s plans for a restaurant and bar at the former site of a Planet Hollywood on Broadway will be approved:

The windows and signs proposed by Margaritaville’s developers should be approved with conditions, the staff said in materials posted online in advance of the commission’s April 21 meeting.

“The existing display windows are not original,” the analysis says. “Based on other historic storefronts and the attached historic image, each bay of the façade had one sheet of clear glass. The applicant proposes to replace the existing non-historic display windows with a folding clear glass wall. …

“Although each window is actually multiple panels of glass, together they will read as one large piece of glass. Staff recommends approving these windows as a test case to determine how well they simulate the character of a storefront window once installed and to assess their durability before approving this system for any other projects.”

The documents posted online have several artists renderings of signage and overall look of the restaurant. Notice that the official logo has a Nashville flair to it.